Social Media Tips For Your Business

by Raneen Jamaledine Published on January 24, 2018

Social Media has become the place where people spend most of their time. When implemented well Social Media can help any business with a limited budget do what only large companies were able to do.

The Social Media Tips we will provide below will support you in setting up a strategy, launching and growing your social media presence.

This will, in turn, help you to grow your business and provide a better service to your clients.

Are you ready?

You don’t have a choice on whether to DO social media, the question is how well you DO IT.

We will provide you with practical tips that could be used to maximize the return on your social media efforts.

Social Media Tip #1:

Four Ways to Use Social Media Sites for your Business

Social Media has become the place where people spend most of their time compared to any other media outlets. When implemented well Social Media can help any business with a limited budget do what only large companies were able to do a few years back.

Here are 4 ways to make use of Social Media for your business

1. Advertising: even with limited budgets, businesses can engage with their prospects and promote their products and services
2. Referrals: There is nothing better than a happy client talking about their purchase from you to their friends and fans on Social Media
3. Customer Support: to efficiently be able to monitor any issues with products or services
4. Product Development: where you can poll and test your prospects’ opinions prior to help in developing your next products and services

The above use cases can be deployed by businesses of any sizes and at various stages of development.

By using Social Media effectively, businesses can save a lot of money and provide a better client experience.

See also: The Ultimate Digital Marketing Guide

Social Media Tip #2:

Top 5 Social Media Sites for your Business

Social Media is being used by billions of individuals around the world and there are hundreds of applications and sites.

The top 5 Social Media Sites include:

1. Facebook: the largest network by far allows you to reach a very wide set of users that could be interesting for your business. It also has the most flexible and targeted advertising capabilities
2. LinkedIn: the largest professional network is very useful if you are selling to businesses or are in the services business yourself
3. Instagram: an efficient and easy way to promote images of your products or services. If you are into handmade or food items, it’s extremely effective. Once you build up your audience of Instagram followers organically, your engagement, as well as your sales, will start to increase steadily.
4. Twitter: useful if you are providing thought leadership or news services. It requires more effort to get a loyal following but can be very influential when you do
5. Pinterest: is also a great tool for businesses to promote products and services especially if you are targeting women buyers

There are many other social media networks that could be useful for a specific set of audience, such as Google+, Tumbler and many local language sites in countries around the world. Even if you are present on all these networks, as a small business, you would need to focus your efforts on the channels that can provide you with the best return on your time.

Social Media Tip #3:

A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Social Media Strategy

Coming up with a solid strategy to guide your social media activities is essential given that without it, you could end up investing a lot of your time without seeing the return on your investment.

Here are the 6 steps to set up your social media strategy

1. Decide what are your primary objectives for your social media activities – are you going to use it for advertising, customer service, product sales or development, recruitment
2. Decide on the 2-5 best social media channels to reach your target audience and objectives
3. Set SMART goals for each channel that are in line with your objectives, such as expected response time to an interaction or expected number of leads
4. Come up with key engagement approaches that you can use to attract and engage your audience on each of the chosen channels
5. Book or Update your social media channels adding your brand elements such as the logo, about us section, attractive banner and links to your website
6. Develop a content marketing plan that includes the frequency and types of posts that would be rolled out on each channel and who from your team is responsible for making that happen

Setting up such a strategy can be done every 3-6 months after reviewing the results of the previous period and your actual results in comparison with your plan. It is important to have at least one person responsible for your social media presence whose role is in collecting the necessary elements from your team or external parties.

Social Media Tip #4:

10 Tips for Crafting the Perfect Social Media Posts

Social media posts can take many forms and should be designed in a way to reflect your strategy. The frequency of posts isn’t as important as the quality of your posts, to ensure that your time is being invested in the right kind of posts.

Here are 10 quick tips to help you in crafting better posts:

• Include engaging images or videos in your posts
• Distribute your posts to cover different time zones in your target countries
• Recirculate old and effective posts with new approaches
• Optimize the posts for each type of channel that you are using
• Rewrite the posts for various target segments that you are reaching
• Identify influencers and mention them in relevant posts
• Be personal in your tone of messages
• Do A/B testing for the same message to identify most effective style
• Identify what’s trending and tag along with your messages or comments
• Keep your audience engaged in the conversation by asking feedback and mentioning them

These are tips that could be applied regularly to your posts and by doing so, you can increase engagement with your audience and increase the return on your invested time.

Social Media Tip #5:

When & How Often should you Post on Social Media

With all the effort that goes into preparing your social media posts, you want to make sure that when you do post them, you will get the maximum number of views for those posts.

Here are some suggestions on the time and frequency of your posts per social media channel per day:

• On Twitter you can be expected to post several tweets a day with some brands posting over 10 a day.
• On Instagram it’s common to for brands to post 2-3 posts a day
• The average number of posts on Facebook for brands is 1 post a day
• LinkedIn posts are more scarce with an average of 1 post per working day

Keep in mind that you might need to post tweets again to cover different time zones if you are working globally. Given that people are continuously connected, posts get the best viewing in the evenings.

In the end, you would need to try, measure and adapt your posts to the time when you get the best interactions.

Social Media Tip #6:

4 Best Practices to Promote Your Business on Social Media

Everyone is spending more time on social media so if you want to reach out to new prospects, go to where they are. Social media can be a very effective tool to reach new prospects and promote your business.

Here are 4 ways to promote your business on social media:

• Use Twitter for updates and announcements about your latest accomplishments including press releases and press coverage
• Use Facebook for competitions that could engage your target audiences – such as the development of a new innovation, or logo
• Come up with useful content in your area of expertise. Create infographics, templates, tools, ebooks that could be promoted on all social channels
• Engage in LinkedIn forums on topics that are relevant to your clients and in your areas of expertise

Using social media as a way to reach prospects could be the most cost-effective way for you to do so.

Social Media Tip #7:

Which Digital Advertising Channels are Best for Your Marketing Campaign

All major social media channels offer affordable advertising options. Choosing which channel to use for each type of advertising can be difficult.

Here are some considerations on which advertising channel is best for your specific marketing objective:

• Google ads are great if you want to promote a specific product or service that people could be searching for
• Facebook ads are great if you want to raise brand awareness by targeting a certain demographic with specific interests. To assess the impact and analyze key metrics of your ads, consider employing a comprehensive Facebook Ads report template tailored to your business goals.
• Twitter ads are great if you want to promote a message or announcement
• LinkedIn ads are great if you want to target a specific function or profession
• TikTok ads are great if you want to attract the younger audience

Be very clear about your objectives from any marketing activity and as such decide on the best channel for your campaign.

Social Media Tip #8:

4 Ways to Use Social Media for Customer Service and Support

Everyone including your users and customers is spending much more time on social media. So why not go to where these customers are instead of asking them to come to us. Provide them with customer service and support on social media itself.

Here are 4 ways social media is being used to improve customer service:

• Tracking sentiment about products, services, or the brand in general. In a nutshell are customers positive or negative in their comments on what we are offering
• Addressing negative issues quickly by spotting any bad experience that is posted and quickly addressing it. Even if not solved quickly the quick response is taken very positively by customers
• Launch a poll to identify how well are you doing. Conducting a simple net promoter score poll can provide you with a wealth of insight and allows you to track your customer service improvements
• Putting a human touch to business transactions. With more and more people interacting with your brand through online channels, social media provides you with an opportunity to connect with your clients on a personal level

The bottom line is that social media provides you with a great opportunity to monitor what your users are saying about your products and services and to quickly address issues that could come up. Make the most out of it to provide a better customer experience.

Conclusion

We hope that through these Social Media Tips and Tricks you would be able to learn what should be done to have a successful social media strategy in 2018!